THEATER REVIEW: New Rep’s ‘Man of La Mancha’ finds its best moments in the music

Thursday

Dec 7, 2017 at 4:39 PMDec 11, 2017 at 1:41 PM

By R. Scott Reedy, Correspondent

WATERTOWN - If you’re looking to replace that endless loop of holiday songs playing in your head right about now, then the classic musical “Man of La Mancha” – now at New Repertory Theatre – may be just the ticket.

After all, it is impossible to resist “The Impossible Dream.” Who among us of a certain age hasn’t been stirred by it many, many times over? If you’re somehow not susceptible to its power, you may want to check to see whether you still have a pulse.

Performed in the Tony Award-winning original 1965 Broadway production by Richard Kiley – who memorably brought a touring “La Mancha” to Boston in 1978 – the ballad has since been recorded by everyone from Frank Sinatra, Andy Williams, Jim Nabors, and Peter O’Toole to Luther Vandross, Susan Boyle, and many more.

At the New Rep, responsibility for “The Impossible Dream” rests with the estimable Maurice Emmanuel Parent. In the three central roles of Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote, and Alonso Quijana, Parent uses his wonderfully expressive face to full advantage, differentiating the three characters clearly and making each compelling in its own individual ways.

And while he may not send the show’s signature song soaring to the rafters, he nonetheless gives it significant meaning and weight, making sure that every word is clearly heard.

Something similar can be said of director Antonio Ocampo-Guzman’s well-intentioned New Rep production that seeks, though not always successfully, to make an enduringly popular musical into something with even greater heft.

In 2017, “Man of La Mancha” – with its plea for fantasy and imagination over facts and reality – may seem, at first, out of sync with the times when truth is under siege. But in the end, the musical is a reminder that dreams can enable us to envision a better world even when reality is very bad, and that the cynically purposeful use of fantasy in talk about “fake news” and “alternative facts” subverts not only the importance of truth but the vital role of imagination, too. As such, it is a good fit with the New Rep’s season-long theme, “Resilience.”

With a book by Dale Wasserman – adapted from his non-musical 1959 teleplay, “I, Don Quixote,” which was based on Miguel de Cervantes’ 17th-century novel – music by Mitch Leigh and lyrics by Joe Darion, “Man of La Mancha” was first produced at Connecticut’s Goodspeed Opera House in 1965 before moving to off-Broadway and then Broadway.

It has been revived four times – twice with Richard Kiley, in 1972 and 1977, with Raul Julia in 1992, and with Brian Stokes Mitchell in 2002. The 1992 revival played a pre-Broadway run at Boston’s Colonial Theatre.

The story takes place in a prison where tax collector Miguel de Cervantes is to be tried by the Spanish Inquisition on charges that he foreclosed on a monastery. Under siege by the other inmates, Cervantes defends himself by acting out a story, with the other prisoners joining him in various roles. The musical soon transforms into a triumph of aspirations over adversity.

The play-within-a-play structure enables plot shifts between the 16th- and 17th-century lifetime of Cervantes, an earlier era when the imaginary knight-errant Alonso Quijano was on his “glorious quest,” and, in this production, the 1960s, when Spain was ruled by iron-fisted dictator Francisco Franco.

As Aldonza, the barmaid and prisoner whom Don Quixote imagines to be his dreamt-about Dulcinea, Boston theater newcomer Ute Gfrerer – an international cabaret artist who recently relocated to the North Shore – makes an auspicious New Rep debut.

Well-matched with Parent, she commands the stage with her world-weary and fiercely defiant delivery of “It’s All the Same,” and then impressively switches gears for the touching “What Does He Want of Me?” Right out of the gate, this portrayal immediately establishes Gfrerer as one to watch.

Like many in the cast, Michael Levesque does triple duty – portraying the Secretary and, unfortunately less effectively, the frequently put-upon Sancho Panza, as well as playing the guitar and ukulele.

Scenic designer Eric Levenson’s layered set uses an array of different materials effectively to underpin the time period transitions. Costume designer Frances Nelson McSherry’s color palette may be a visual letdown, but the imaginative repurposing of a file cabinet drawer front to serve as Quixote’s shield is interesting.

Ultimately, though, this production, like the many that have come before it, finds its best moments in its music. That’s what will stay with you long after you leave the theater.